L.A. Affairs: My love’s death saddened me. The recent L.A. wildfires echoed my loss
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We used to drive up the coast on a motorcycle. Me, with my arms tightly wrapped around him and my earbuds in, listening to Puccini and singing “O mio babbino caro” on the back of the bike, as I watched the glitter on the Pacific, the palm trees, the surfers and people at the beaches, some jogging, others waiting for valet parking services. I was a woman in my early 20s.
We met at Greg and Yvonne’s dinner party on Buchanan Street in San Francisco. When I arrived, Yvonne, who’s from Paris, whispered in my ear, “We invited two bachelors. You can pick and choose one.”
In those days, I didn’t even know yet what a bachelor was. Eric’s eyes were glued on me all night. Before I left, he said, “If you ever come to L.A., call me” and then handed me his number. I called him a few months later from San Francisco and went to visit him for three days, just before my friend at the time, Hélène, an au pair from Lyon, France, and I left the U.S. to return to Europe.
My life suddenly changed. My husband had two sudden massive heart attacks and died. At his grave, I said over and over, ‘I just want to be with you.’
The January wildfires in L.A. have made me revisit my entire relationship with Eric, the good and the bad, and those first three days after he picked me up from the Burbank airport in his convertible. During my visit, he gave me his room, with the checkered flannel sheets on the bed, and slept on the couch. (His sister, Tina, also was visiting from Seattle with her fiancé.)
Eric took me to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Rodeo Drive, Hollywood, Venice and up the coast to Malibu to meet Dori and Larry, who had a house on Big Rock. He was so grateful that I didn’t want to go to Disneyland and preferred having a picnic at the beach instead. Then he showed me Las Virgenes Road, and we drove through the tunnel and then on Mulholland Drive toward Topanga Canyon.
He loved Richard Bach’s “Jonathan Livingston Seagull” and gave me a copy of it.
Later, when I moved in with him in a house in the San Fernando Valley, we went to eat at a little fish place on Topanga Canyon Boulevard, where I had toasted marshmallows for the first time. We also sometimes dined at the Reel Inn and Moonshadows, but Geoffrey’s in Malibu was my favorite.
Sitting in this elevated space overlooking the blue ocean felt like being in the South of France, and the food was presented artistically. There, Eric took a photograph of my reflection on a glass table. I was reminded of Erich Fromm’s “The Art of Loving,” which I read when I was 15. “Love isn’t something natural. Rather, it requires discipline, concentration, patience, faith and the overcoming of narcissism.”
For many years, I wasn’t looking to be set up. I also wasn’t wanting a hookup. My heart desired another chance for deep, magical, encompassing love.
In 2002, Eric died of an aneurysm when he was 49. He was buried in Glen Haven & Sholom Memorial Park in Sylmar, where the Hurst fire was recently contained. When I saw the flames and smoke of the fires on the screen from thousands of miles away, it felt as though I had lost Eric all over again. Silent tears turned into sobs as video showed the damage along Pacific Coast Highway. These sobs came from deep within.
I had built my life on this love, living in L.A. for nearly half my years. I studied at Santa Monica College and UCLA, and then took up American studies in Berlin and analyzed “Mildred Pierce,” watching Joan Crawford gaze hopelessly at the Pacific before being saved by an L.A. police officer.
So I’ve been looking at old photographs and letters. There was the one from Eric from May 5, 1987.
“It is evening now, and the sky is a beautiful, strange shade of purple above, fading to silver in the west, then to a soft gold color on the horizon,” he wrote.
“There is a bright half-moon shining directly above. An airplane crosses the face of the moon, and I can see the people silhouetted in the windows. It turns, and makes its way east across the desert, toward the night. It’s quiet again.”
My friends and I started using dating apps. At the time, I was raising my son and I had a newly adopted dog. I kept wondering: Did I really have time for love and romance?
Eric and I didn’t even make it to three years, but we decided to take a trip to Hawaii to have a memorable longer separation before we parted for good. When we returned from our trip, he couldn’t take me to Los Angeles International Airport for my flight to Stuttgart, Germany. His mom had been hospitalized due to a brain tumor, and so he had to rush to Seattle.
I still remember our trip well, that crispy ahi with pineapple salsa, the rainbows in Kauai and the sweet smell of the orchids and plumeria of the leis.
During our separation, Eric sent me a letter: “The reason I haven’t called is not because I don’t like you but because it would be so hard to talk to you. I think all we would do is cry and not get anything said. Hopefully, we’ll be able to talk soon. I had a wonderful time with you in Hawaii. I will never forget it.”
Recently, I called Geoffrey’s from Le Havre, France, where I live, to check if it was still standing. I was so relieved when the woman on the phone said, “We’re still cleaning up today but will reopen tomorrow.”
“Is it possible to get there on PCH?” I asked.
“You have to take the 101,” she said.
L.A. Affairs is a first-person column in the Los Angeles Times chronicling romance and relationships. We are looking for original essays. Here’s how to send us yours.
When I heard 101, I felt like being home again in L.A. These were my streets, the city I had lived in for longer than my hometown, the city that shaped me, but I don’t think I will ever have that sensation again, that feeling when I arrived at LAX, seeing the flickering lights of Los Angeles and its grids, thinking that the world was full of possibilities and knowing Eric was waiting there for me.
Although so many years have passed, I still see him in my mind, feeding seagulls at Zuma Beach, as I watch the gulls over the gray-green English Channel. And I think how we drove on California 118, me holding the steering wheel, my hair blowing in the wind as he tried to hold it back, cheerfully chatting away. When I hear one of Eric’s favorite songs, “What a Wonderful World” by Louis Armstrong, I feel he’s still somewhere out there, trying to tell me he loves me.
The author is a freelance writer and art critic. She has written for The Times, various L.A. art magazines and the Times of Israel. She lives in Le Havre, France. She’s on Instagram: @simonesuzannekussatz
L.A. Affairs chronicles the search for romantic love in all its glorious expressions in the L.A. area, and we want to hear your true story. We pay $400 for a published essay. Email [email protected]. You can find submission guidelines here. You can find past columns here.
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